Disposable pants for diapers or for incontinence products are well-known products. For these, it has always been an aim to equip them with a garment-like appearance, such that the diapers or incontinence products, when worn by a user, have the outer appearance of a conventional pant, in particular the appearance of conventional underwear/undergarments.
One of the issues when mass-producing disposable pants of this type is the appearance of the portion at which the front portion and the rear portion are joined together at the sides. When producing a seam of this kind, the typical issue that arises is that the seam and any flange portion that inevitably is produced, sticks out to the outside if the pants are worn by a user.
In order to improve the garment-like appearance of these disposable pants, it is an aim that the side seam and the resulting flange material does not stick out to the sides of the pants but that these seams are not really visible on the outside.
Several attempts to achieve this have been carried out. WO 2004/062541 A1, for example, discloses a method of producing diaper pants of disposable type, wherein the weld seams at the sides are made such that the front portion and the rear portion overlap in a manner such that the inner layer of the front portion is welded to the outer layer of the rear portion. The resulting pant has a garment-like appearance but the method requires advanced and difficult handling of the diapers at the welding step.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,042,673 discloses a method of making a flangeless seam for a disposable pant, wherein the step of actually making the seam requires several complicated folding steps.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,074,854 discloses a disposable undergarment having additional break-away panels which connect the front portion and the rear portion along seams. The manufacturing process is likewise complicated.